happy valentine's day, everyone! i decided that there was no better day to share our love story than today! and..don't forget...valentine's day is about telling everyone in your life how much you love them! enjoy!
i fell in love with michael the day i met him. i was in fourth grade, we were at alps (the gifted/talented program at our elementary school). he was new to my school and he had the cutest glasses. (side note: because of his glasses, i agreed to get glasses myself, which i desperately needed...they didn't last long though.) i knew he was the one. of course, he ended up going out with one of my friends who was tall and blonde and had a habit of dating the new kid and i had other boys i was interested in. michael and i began building a friendship.
left: my doodles around michael's picture in the 4th gr. yearbook.
right: michael's signature in my yearbook and my purple doodles around it.
by the time we got to sixth grade, michael and i were close friends and at the first football game of the season, during a game of wall ball, he asked me to be his girlfriend. i said yes (for the first time). i remember my mom asking me the next morning, "does it feel like a dream?" it certainly did. let me just say that we were the coolest kids in sixth grade. there wasn't a party we went to that we didn't each bring a book. yep, we were those kids. (side note: for the record, i out-read michael, and everyone else in our grade, every year for all of middle school. just needed to get that out there.) in may, we decided it was best to end it. i was going away to camp for most of the summer and wouldn't have a phone and it was just too complicated.
seventh grade rolled around and we were once again best of friends.
in eighth grade, though, he asked me out again. i said yes, again. i even convinced him to be in the musical that year, the king and i. i was double cast with my cousin, mackenzie, as anna and michael's character kissed my/our hand. once again, we ended it at the end of the year as i went off to tennessee for camp and he was busy all summer with camps in texas.
left: michael's note to me in my 8th gr. year book. yes, he misspelled write. he turned out alright though. also...note my hearts doodled around his words, although he did draw the one next to his name(:
right: us before our first middle school dance. as you can tell from my top, it was western themed. i'm sure michael had a cowboy hat in the car or something. i look so awkward but michael looks precious, and so short!
then came high school. we had some dances together and lots of study 'dates', but i was getting increasingly busy with choir and theatre, and michael was on the varsity soccer team and taking as many ap classes as he could. we managed to continue our close friendship until the end or so of sophomore year. by that point, we had drifted a little beyond each other's reach. senior year i was one of the girls honored at the philharmonic ball. i had debated as to whether or not i should ask michael to be my escort the summer before, but had decided on one of our other friends, bryan. well, lo and behold, michael ended up coming with his parents to the ball with his girlfriend at the time. the four of us had a blast dancing all the night, but at the same time, something didn't feel right. i told my cousin, mackenzie, afterwards, "the man i marry will be the one who can keep my attention when michael is in the room."
above: ice skating on michael's first trip to new york.. lookin' good...
then came college. he headed off to boston and i headed off to new york. i thought the next time i would see him would be at our ten year high school reunion. freshman year brought some ups and downs. in november, i got sick and decided to take a medical leave for the rest of the year. as a christmas present my parents bought me a ticket to new york. on a whim, i sent michael a facebook message that i was going to be in town and would love to catch up if he wanted to make the trek to nyc. it just so happened that one of his friends was coming to new york for the weekend to see his dad so michael rode down with him. i have to say that i had no intension of rekindling anything. i was talking to someone else at the time and michael was busy with school in boston. to our surprise (and delight) the time we had spent away had given us the space we needed to experience things and grow individually. we spent 36 hours roaming around the city. we walked through greenwich, down the hudson, cut through chinatown, went to the union square market, saw the lights of the city from the brooklyn bridge and top of the rock, went ice skating at rockefeller plaza, swing danced in columbus circle, returned to the brooklyn bridge for sunrise, walked back to manhattan via the manhattan bridge, saw hair on broadway, and had a lovely breakfast with some of his family who were visiting in town. that ended up being the first of many adventures in the city and all over new england. it was the beginning of a new chapter in both of our lives. the past three years have been filled with so much joy.
almost three years later, michael asked me to be his forever. i cannot wait for us to start a new chapter filled with new adventures together this august.
i hope everyone's day is filled with love.
